SIDE X SIDE - reviewed in The NY Times

reBlogged via Visual AIDS >blog:

SIDE X SIDE - reviewed in The NY Times

The New York Times review of SIDE X SIDE by Holland Cotter  
Friday, July 25, 2008

"Side x Side" at La MaMa La Galleria includes work by three Wojnarowicz contemporaries who died of the disease -- Scott Burton (1939-1989), Nicolas Moufarrege (1947-1985) and Martin Wong (1946-1999) -- and by two other artists, Kate Huh and Carrie Yamaoka, whose work registered its impact.

Organized by Dean Daderko for Visual AIDS, a nonprofit organization that tries to increase public awareness of AIDS through the visual arts, the show is sparely and lovingly installed. Ms. Yamaoka, a longtime gay activist, contributes abstract pieces from the 1990s made of mirrors with the reflective coating ripped away. From Ms. Huh comes a tiny but potent zine that catches the punky, street-level-apocalypse energy that this part of town once generated.

It’s great to see Mr. Moufarrege's witty embroidered paintings here, turning art history into pop culture. His "Truth About John the Baptist," with its hulking superhero, Arabic script (it reads, "My father taught me Arabic calligraphy") and child floating in a pool of pink glitter, looks just right today. So does Mr. Wong's "Sweet Oblivion" (1983). It's the most beautiful painting of the Lower East Side I know of, and it’s an image of a time and place that now exist only in art and memories.

Read more here

Also read Thomas Devaney review here

Come see what everyone is talking about!

Curator Talk with Dean Daderko
Saturday, July 26, from 2-3 PM

Reading with Kate Huh, Sara Marcus & Eileen Myles
Monday, August 4, 6:30-8PM

LaMaMa La Galleria
6 E. 1st Street, NYC
(btw Bowery & 2nd Ave)
Hrs: Wednesday-Sunday, 1-6 PM

Exhibition runs until Sunday, August 3, 2008

Image: "The Truth About John the Baptist" (1983), by Nicolas Moufarrege. Collection of  Dr.  Nabil Moufarrej and Nouna Moufarrej